Spiritual Coupling
poems
Being Light
Recently I introduced the newly published book of spiritual poetry, Rose Petals Floating Downstream by Anita Neilson ( https://anitaneilson.com/ )
I picked up the book in an in-between time today and opened to the poem below, “If Thine Eye be Single.” Here it is, accompanied by what it evoked from me.
If Thine Eye be Single
“The light of the body is the eye:
if therefore thine eye be single,
thy whole body shall be full of light.”
Matthew 6:22
Eyes twinkling
like headlamps dipping
o’er the brow of a hill;
silent messengers
through the mists of time.
Windows on the world
but also to the soul
if we look deeper.
Codeless truths blink
to those who seek
meaning en route.
An eternal clignoter
Clic, clic, clic.
If thine eye be single
a million stars
Will diffuse into one
and every twist and turn
a delight will be
on this path to eternity.
Anita Neilson
Response
The eye with which god
sees me is the same eye
with which I see god.
One seeing
knowing
loving.
My eye and god’s eye
are one.
Meister Eckhart
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
The light with which god
sees me is the same light
with which I see god.
One seeing
knowing
loving
One Light.
God’s light and my light
are one light.
rita h kowats
Rose Petals Floating Downstream
I recommend this lovely new book of Anita Neilson’s spiritual poetry:
https://anitaneilson.com/2018/12/07/its-raining-rose-petals/
Advent God
The Innerness of All Things
You create yourself in
ever-changing shapes
that rise from the stuff
of our days-
unsung, unmourned,
undescribed,
like a forest we never knew.
You are the deep
innerness of all things,
the last word that can
never be spoken.
To each of us you
reveal yourself
differently:
to the ship as a
coastline, to the shore
as a ship.
from The Book of Hours II, 22
in A Year with Rilke: Daily Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke
by Rainer Maria Rilke, Anita Barrows (Editor), Joanna Macy (Editor)
Response
Photo Credit: pexels.com
Ordinary Time
Yesterday, to save time, I took the E-line bus which runs through the non-Amazon side of Seattle. It is a route which usually leaves me depleted of psychic energy. However, this time the E-Line gifted me with the blessed ordinariness of life. It was a holiday and folks were basking in their liminal time. Gentle smiles graced the faces of the poorest of the poor. An aging woman who still walked well gave her seat to an aging man who no longer walked well. I was unaware of my need to see ordinary folks going about their lives with courage and joy. Today this poem emerged.
Photo Credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/349447/ by Eugenia
I Will Lay Me Down
I took comfort here as news of multiple pipe bombs mailed to Democrats rolled in.
When you’re weary, feeling small
When tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all (all)
I’m on your side, oh, when times get rough
And friends just can’t be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
When you’re down and out
When you’re on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you (ooo)
I’ll take your part, oh, when darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Sail on silver girl
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
See how they shine
Oh, if you need a friend
I’m sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Songwriters: Paul Simon
Bridge over Troubled Water lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Freshly “Dead” Souls
Let Not Swollen Cities Suffocate
Like a Metal That Hasn’t Been Mined
by Rainer Maria Rilke
You, mountain, here since mountains began,
slopes where nothing is built, peaks that no one has named,
eternal snows littered with stars,
valleys in flower offering fragrances of earth….
Do I move inside you now?
Am I within the rock
like a metal that hasn’t been mined?
Your hardness encloses me everywhere….
Or is it fear I am caught in?
The tightening fear of the swollen cities in which I suffocate….
The Book of Hours III, 2
in A Year with Rilke: Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke
trans. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
Call me a pantheist. I don’t mind. I am one with my cat, so why not with a mountain? Sherlock just jumped onto the table and has boldly pushed his way into my arms. I lay my head on him and feel the deep resonant purring. Our breaths synchronize and for that moment all is well. It isn’t enough that I observe momentarily. To become one with nature takes time. Time enough to blend breathing.
When I feel suffocated in the city, and all the politics that come with it, I need to immerse myself in nature to the point of saturation. Only then can I return to the city strong enough not to lose my self.
photo credit: diana_robinson <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/62501682@N00/41437040220″>Seattle skyline from Kerry Park, Seattle, Washington</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>(license)</a>
photo credit: Onasill ~ Bill Badzo <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/7156765@N05/40223073965″>Mount Hood – Oregon – USA</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a>
Circling the White Elephant
The Carousel (I)
Jardin du Luxembourg
Under its canopy, in the shade it casts,
turns a world with painted horses,
all from a land that lingers a while before it disappears.
Some, it’s true, are harnessed to a wagon,
but all have valor in their eyes.
A fierce red lion leaps among them,
and here comes ’round a snow-white elephant.
Even a stag appears, straight from the forest,
except for the saddle he wears, and, buckled on it, a small boy in blue. And a boy in white rides the lion,
gripping it with small clenched hands,
while the lion flashes teeth and tongue.
And here comes ’round a snow-white elephant.
And riding past on charging horses come girls,
bright-eyed, almost too old now for this children’s play.
With the horses rising under them, they are looking
up and off to what awaits.
And here comes ’round a snow-white elephant.
New Poems
in A Year with Rilke: Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke
trans. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
The Carousel (II)
It goes on and hurries to some end,
just circling and turning without a goal.
Flashes of red, of green, of grey whirl past,
solid shapes barely glimpsed.
Sometimes a smile comes toward us, and, like a blessing,
shines and is gone in this dizzying parade with no destination.
New Poems
in A Year with Rilke: Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke
trans. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
Lately, many of us have been feeling like passengers on a carousel, circling around a snow-white elephant in the room of our battered psyches. Whether the elephant is elections, confirmation hearings, Brexit, hurricanes or earthquakes, we can’t seem to step out of the fray.
Rilke offers a way out. Let’s give the elephants their just due, then turn our attention to the smiles, the blessings we see as we circle. This carousel of life has no destination. It is how we ride the horse that matters.
I see a smile today in the example of a friend who is circling her third and possible final encounter with cancer. Her honest, intentional living is a blessing to me. I am choosing to live in that light today and invite you to also bask in it. I extend the merits of this meditation to you and to all sentient beings.
May it be so.
Photo Credit:https://www.pexels.com/photo/carousel-with-lights-1403653/Photo by Mihai Vlasceanu from Pexels
Response photo: http://www.pexels.com
Pain-Compassion-Change
One year ago I posted this:
“This effect grants the power to cause a hurricane in China to a butterfly flapping its wings in New Mexico. It may take a very long time, but the connection is real. If the butterfly had not flapped its wings at just the right point in space/time, the hurricane would not have happened.”
http://fractalfoundation.org/resources/what-is-chaos-theory/
Down Here
Wispy tendrils of hazy smoke
from Canada’s forest fires
Lasso branches of not-so-evergreens
And the aberrant heat drapes
its humid blanket over this bed
We now must lie in.
Over There
Adam lies drowning
In a pool of lethal despair
While in Bahrain more mundane matters
Press on Ahmad and the butterfly spirals down
To The Boneyard of Indifference.
©Rita H Kowats August 3, 2017
Photo Credit: photo credit: judygva <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/34052621551″>Juniper Hairstreak – Callophrys gryneus, Phelps Wildlife Management Area, Sumerduck, Virginia</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>
The Butterfly Effect III
Today, a year later, my back is left in pain from sitting all day on Thursday feeling and thinking my way through the testimonies of Christine Blasey Ford and Bret Kavanaugh. No doubt you have heard enough of and about it. I am led to acknowledge the pain that still bounces off the walls of our souls and offer a sliver of hope that I see emerging.
The spiritual implication of the Butterfly Effect theory is that our attitudes and actions matter to one another. They even matter to those we don’t know, whether we are aware or not. Even as I literally choke on the pain I still feel from past experiences, from the pain of Christine Blasey Ford, and the pain I feel with thousands of abuse survivors, I feel hope in the compassionate choice of Senator Jeff Flake calling for a week’s delay to investigate. Compassion. To feel with. This time, with this man, the butterfly did not spiral down to the boneyard of indifference.
We are experiencing this moment together. May we now practice leaving our left-brain analysis behind for a while to focus on this little flap of the wing:
Breathing-in compassion
Breathing-out compassion
Breathing-in understanding
Breathing-out change.
I am with you.
